Oleksandra Khilova [OK]: Hello guys, and welcome to a new Collaborator podcast episode where we chat with brilliant SEOs and share our knowledge with the world. Today’s topic is about Local SEO Strategies for multilingual websites. And today our guest is Amy Leach. Amy is an Organic Lead at Embryo in Manchester, United Kingdom. She has been in SEO since 2014, and today Amy shares her knowledge, experience, and best practices for multilingual websites. My name is Oleksandra. I’m your host and I’m also an SEO specialist and a Link Builder in the past. Now I am working as a Marketing Manager at Collaborator.Pro. I also had some experience in local SEO in the United States, Europe, and Canada. So I think we will have fun. But before we start, please like, subscribe, and share your thoughts and comments below this video. Thank you. Amy, the floor is yours.
Amy Leach [AL]: Thank you. As Oleksandra mentioned today, we’ll be going through local SEO strategies for multilingual websites, touching on all three pillars and hopefully providing you with a useful overview. Thank you again for joining us, and I also appreciate the invitation to speak.
Let me start with a brief introduction. I’m Amy, and this year marks my tenth year in SEO. I began my career at a small digital agency in Manchester, primarily focusing on off-site work. Since then, I’ve worked in both agency and in-house roles. Currently, I’m the Organic Lead at Embryo, where I oversee all of our SEOs, the content team, and the digital PR team, developing strategies for a wide range of clients. I’ve gained experience across various industries, including B2B lead generation and e-commerce. My time in-house was spent in the travel industry, which was also quite enjoyable.
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Differences Between Local and Traditional SEO
Now, let’s dive into an overview of the differences between local SEO and traditional SEO. To be honest, the lines between the two can sometimes blur, but understanding the key differences is crucial. For me, the primary differentiator is the audience and their intent. What are users searching for, and what do they expect to find? From a local SEO perspective, it’s about targeting a super-niche, highly specific audience, whereas traditional SEO tends to have a broader scope.
To illustrate this, I’ve done a quick SERP analysis to examine intent before we get started. I used an internal tool called “Intermingle” to capture snapshots of the SERPs and analyze different SERP features. I selected three search terms that reflect a spectrum of intent, ranging from traditional to more localized searches.
First, we have “law firm” — a term with no explicit local intent. While I might be looking for a local law firm, I haven’t specified that in the search. Then we have “cake,” which is extremely broad. When searching for “cake,” the intent is unclear — am I looking for images, recipes, or a nearby bakery? Google isn’t given enough information to know what I want. Finally, we have “Stockport estate agents,” a highly specific search for estate agents in my local area.
When examining these searches at the landing page level, it’s interesting to see the differences in local ranking content, which I’ve highlighted with asterisks.
[AL]: All of these pages have specific localized landing pages associated with them. Even though I wasn’t very specific with “law firm” and “cake,” Google is still trying to provide local results. It’s also important to note the appearance of the top local packs. These local results show up across all three searches, with Google Business Profile listings appearing as well. Google provides a map, aiming to determine whether the user’s intent is local. It’s interesting to see how Google handles the SERPs, and in my recent experience, there has been a shift toward prioritizing local results.
For instance, when I search for something as broad as “cake,” Google is still trying to find the best local results for me, focusing on what is most relevant and closest to the user. Even though I haven’t explicitly indicated local intent, Google still attempts to deliver local results. This is an important aspect to consider in local SEO, and when thinking about the fundamentals of multilingual SEO for websites aiming to launch internationally, it’s crucial to understand the distinction between “multilingual” and “multi-regional” sites.
Multilingual vs. Multi-Regional Websites
[AL]: A multilingual website offers content in more than one language, while a multi-regional website explicitly targets users in more than one country. A website doesn’t necessarily need to offer multiple languages to be multi-regional. However, many websites are both multilingual and multi-regional. For example, a Canadian business with both English and French versions of their website would be considered multilingual.
On the other hand, a multi-regional example could be a manufacturer shipping products to both Canada and the U.S. Google will find the most relevant page for the user, not necessarily based on language but based on regional relevance.
Domain Structures for International SEO
[AL]: When thinking about globalization, it’s important to understand domain structure from a technical perspective. There are various TLDs (Top-Level Domains), each with different levels of authority. For example, sponsored TLDs like .gov and .edu are highly authoritative and are often government or education-led. These are the types of domains I’d aim to acquire links from, as they are strong domains with longstanding authority.
